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The Marketing Problem That Isn't Actually About Marketing You know what's interesting? After helping manage over a billion dollars in ad spend, I've notice...
You know what's interesting? After helping manage over a billion dollars in ad spend, I've noticed something that might surprise you. The businesses that struggle most with marketing often don't have a marketing problem at all.
They have a clarity problem.
I see this constantly here in Franklin. A business owner will reach out because their Facebook ads aren't working, or their Google rankings dropped, or their email open rates are terrible. But when we dig into what they're actually trying to accomplish, things get fuzzy fast.
"We want to grow" is the most common answer I hear. Okay, but grow how? More customers? Higher prices? Different customers? Expand to Nashville? Open a second location?
Each of those goals requires a completely different marketing approach. And this is where most businesses get stuck in an expensive cycle of throwing tactics at the wall.
Here's what typically happens: You start a business with a clear idea of what you're selling and who wants it. Then you hear about Instagram marketing, so you start posting. Someone mentions email newsletters, so you set one up. A friend swears by Google Ads, so you give those a shot.
Six months later, you're managing four different marketing channels, none of them particularly well, and you can't really tell which ones are working.
The problem isn't that you picked the wrong tactics. The problem is you never clearly defined what "working" means for your specific business.
I learned this lesson the hard way managing campaigns for Fortune 500 companies. The clients who gave us clear, specific goals got the best results. The ones who said "just drive more traffic" or "increase brand awareness" ended up frustrated with campaigns that technically performed well but didn't move their business forward.
Before you touch another marketing channel, you need to get crystal clear on three things:
What does one more customer actually do for your business? Not just revenue-wise, but operationally. Can you handle more customers right now? Do you have the capacity? The staff? If you're already maxed out, marketing might create more problems than solutions.
What does your ideal growth timeline look like? Are you trying to hit certain numbers before spring? Planning for a busy summer season? Preparing to expand? Your timeline changes everything about which marketing approaches make sense.
What would you stop doing if something new worked really well? This is my favorite question because it forces you to think about opportunity cost. If you successfully double your local customers, would you stop trying to reach Nashville? If your email list took off, would you scale back on social media?
Here in Franklin, I use what I call the "Main Street test" with local business owners. Imagine you could put a billboard on Main Street that would guarantee you exactly the type of customers you want most. What would that billboard say? Who would it speak to? What action would you want people to take?
If you can't answer that clearly, adding more marketing channels won't help. You'll just be confused in more places.
But here's what's fascinating - once you get clear on these fundamentals, marketing decisions become almost obvious. You know which social platforms your ideal customers actually use. You know whether email or text messaging makes more sense. You know if you should focus on local SEO or broader reach.
This clarity problem is also why AI tools sometimes make marketing worse instead of better. AI is incredible at execution, but it can't fix unclear strategy.
I've watched businesses use AI to create tons of social content that looks professional but doesn't connect with anyone specific. Or generate hundreds of email subject lines when they haven't figured out what story they're trying to tell.
But when you're clear on your goals and audience, AI becomes incredibly powerful. It can help you create variations of messaging you know works. It can automate the tactical execution while you focus on strategy. It can analyze what's working faster than any human could.
The key is having something clear to optimize toward.
If your marketing feels scattered or overwhelming, try this: Pick one specific, measurable goal for the next 90 days. Not "grow the business" or "get more customers." Something like "book 20 more consultations" or "sell 50 units of our winter special" or "get 100 new people on our email list."
Then ask yourself: What's the simplest way to achieve just that goal? Not the most creative way, or the way that covers all your bases, or the way that sets you up for massive scale later. Just the simplest way.
You might discover that posting on Instagram three times a day isn't nearly as effective as calling past customers who haven't ordered in six months. Or that optimizing your Google Business Profile drives more qualified leads than any paid advertising.
The beautiful thing about getting clear on one goal is that it makes everything else easier to evaluate. Does this marketing idea help you reach your 90-day goal or not? If not, save it for later.
Most marketing problems solve themselves once you know exactly what you're trying to accomplish. Everything else is just tactics.